Nigeria’s oil pipelines have outlived their lifespans, says minister

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, has stated that most of the oil pipelines in the country have outlived their lifespans.

Lokpobiri revealed this in a statement on Monday when he received the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ambassador to Nigeria, Salem Al Shamsi, in his office in Abuja.

He said Nigeria needs to attract investments in the oil and gas sector to boost infrastructural development in the industry, noting that the ambassador’s visit aims to enhance the relationship between Nigeria and the UAE.

He explained that Nigeria is focused on ramping up its oil production and is inviting UAE investors to consider the country as a prime destination, positing that the business environment here is friendly and the crude deposits are vast.

“We need to create more opportunities for investments to come in so that we can create the requisite funding for us to be able to finance our transition,” Lokpobiri said.

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“Nigeria has enormous investment opportunities. Our pipelines need renewal. The pipelines have been there for over 50 years. Nigeria found oil in commercial quantities in 1956/58.

“From then till now, it’s almost 70 years, and most of those pipelines were built around that time, so they have already outlived their lifespan.

“Even if you have the capacity to produce, you need to evacuate to the terminals where you could export.

“So, it’s an opportunity we are actually looking up to for potential investors from the UAE to come and invest and recover their money through those investments.”

Speaking at the meeting, Al Shamsi expressed belief in the significant potential within Nigeria’s energy sector and praised the efforts to foster a favourable investment climate.

The ambassador said that technical teams from both the Ministry and the UAE Embassy would need to meet to discuss potential collaboration, stressing the importance of exploring partnership opportunities between the two countries.